


Choose a Side

by whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp



Series: Shorts/One Shots [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Mentions, Bisexual John, Coming Out, F/M, Gen, M/M, Pining, Post Reichenbach, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Pre-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Questioning, its just some sexuality and crushing from afar anguish tbh, literally only rated for swearing, mary is barely in it dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4858841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp/pseuds/whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically just one very long bi John hc because the world can't have enough of them. Happy bi visibility day everyone :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose a Side

**Author's Note:**

> yes it's first person and i know y'all hate first person but give me a chance ok thanks :)

People, which I'm using to mean everyone I've ever known, met, been related to, or been closely involved with, always think I'm straight. I'm not.

I don't blame them, because I've never bothered to correct them, I've never said otherwise. I've never told anyone I'm not straight. It still sounds surreal saying it now to be honest.

I've never exactly hidden, but I've had no reason to tell anyone, and I don't see the point of going through the issues around a massive coming out when there's nothing really to tell. But it's time, I think - now that I'm starting again. A clean slate, everything out in the open.

From the very beginning I suppose. If there's anything I've gleaned from therapy it's that you should say everything, say it all. There really isn't that much to tell. But I'll start at the beginning.

 

  
It was my O level year, I think, the first time I started noticing boys as well as girls. To some extend I always had, but since no one talked about it and it wasn't really serious, just a few more-than-platonic observations here and there, I assumed everyone felt like that. Plus everyone around me was always talking about girls, and I fitted in there, so I had no reason to suspect I was unusual in any way. But that year was the year I realised, because, I eventually worked out, there was one specific boy, I think in my English lit class, taller than me and darker, that I liked. More than liked really. I liked him in the same way everyone around me talked about liking girls, and in the same way that I'd liked girls in the past. I had a terrible time thinking about it. The fact that I didn't know if other people felt that, or if I could voice it, was slightly terrifying, honestly. I just tried not to think about it.

It wasn't until I was almost out of lower sixth that I really worked out what was going on - that I apparently liked both genders in more or less the same way - and even then I was still pretty horribly confused. This was early 80s, no one talked about the much, and if they did they didn't use all the labels and PC phrases we've got today. We had 'gay' and 'straight' and a whole lot of creative slurs and that was it. Nothing else, nothing in between. This was the opposite of helpful really, as, great as I'm sure the gay scene then was for people who fitted in, every time I ever so much as looked at another boy I went into full gay panic mode, but I knew for definite that I couldn't be. I'd dated girls, was dating girls. People made their assumptions, as people do. I had nothing to say to contradict them. I didn't want to.

This was all around the time Harry came out. She did it fairly dramatically, as per her usual, but it was obvious she didn't mean it to happen like that. I guess she just could hold it anymore. She was always a bit more brash than me, and braver. It happened over dinner - I remember Mum asking her if she'd met any boys recently, kept pressing her, teasing her. In the end Harry just threw her fork down and shouted back 'actually Mum, I have a girlfriend!'

In the end, after a lot of upset and upheaval it was all fine. It was just shock really. No one talked about any of this, and people were even more likely to assume then that everyone was straight. We were raised C of E of course, but that didn't really make a difference. Mum only went because all her friends did, we just went because she did, and it wasn't that kind of church anyway. It was just shock. I remember they weren't really sure what to do. Mum was crying and trying not to and hugging Harry every twenty seconds and murmuring that she didn't understand and that Harry had never seemed like 'that kind of girl', and Dad was questioning her about it with an outside voice, trying not to sound angry and failing. I didn't know what to do either; I thought I should probably leave, but I couldn't exactly make a run for it.

I don't think that evening was really a huge factor in me never talking about how I felt... Mum and Dad really did love Harry, and once they got over it they did try and be supportive. It was only arguments over curfew and drinking and when exactly she was allowed over to Anna's (I think her first girlfriend's name was Anna...) and, later, Harry dropping out of going to church that they fell out over. I mean obviously I didn't want to have to go through that with me being the one they fussed over and interrogated, but I knew if I did tell them they'd get over it. I just managed to convince myself there was nothing to tell.

I think Harry suspected. I think she still does - she'll probably be the first to cry 'I told you so' when it's out. When I'm out, even. She never said anything of course, but she was always annoyed that I didn't take her side when she wanted to go out, or to bring whoever she was dating to some do or other, and I think part of it was because she knew I _should_ be on her side, fighting, in as much as it was fighting, alongside her. We never talked about it. Except the one time she was a bit drunk and ranting about how she would never find another girl but I could get any I wanted, and, though she was a bit slow at the time, she probably still understood me when I said something along the lines of 'maybe I don't want to get girls all the time'...

 

  
University was a different world. No parents' expectations of perfect marriage and 2.5 kids to be constantly reminded of, no classmates casually dropping slurs to force my head back into the default settings, no drinking, moping gay sister to set a very depressing example of what could be - just a new group of people in a big city. There were actual gay bars in London, where I could hang out with actual gay people. It was kind of surreal. Fun, but again, slightly terrifying and not particularly helpful. I had a good time, made some friends and everything, but it was so binary still: most straight people I knew were either confused, indifferent to or repulsed by the gay people I knew, and most of the gay people I knew were equally not fond, and a lot of the time the blokes were vocal about wanting nothing to do with women ever, about hating them. I felt like I was cheating the system, that I should have picked a side by now, that there was something wrong with me. Half the time I felt like I'd wake up and realise I'd made the whole thing up in my head. Every cliché in the book. I felt guilty.

The AIDS scare didn't help either. A few of my gay friends had gone as far as inviting me to help carry their banner at pride that year, and I'd almost gone as far as to say yes, but all the TV adverts and the whispered talk and the shunning anew made me rethink it all. It was frightening; I knew people who knew people who died. No one was about to come out any time soon, in the midst of an epidemic that made people of us as all disease ridden and dangerous. Least of all me, as someone who was at some point going to want to get off with women in the future and knew the scare was going to make that difficult if I'd been with men too.

I stuck to dating one or two girls in my first year, and though some of my best friends from then I met at gay bars, I never said anything or did anything. I think they probably all thought of me as their enthusiastic token straight friend. I didn’t like that I was lying to them, but I think I was okay with it really, with just being a very committed ally.

In second year that changed. I first kissed another boy.

Drunk, in all honesty, and over one of those awful dare type games you play at parties, I can't remember which. He was older than me, broader but not taller, wore squeaky leather, and wasn't gay. I don't actually remember a lot about it, and I don't know if that's a blessing or a shame, considering the magnitude and the circumstances. I do remember hiding out for days afterwards in case he called, in case he tried to find me after a lecture. I laughed it off with friends, and I think I implied I was drunker than I really was.

This sort of thing happened a few times, but I only let it happen under cover of darkness and alcohol at slightly dodgy parties. I met Mike around this time (sober that time, thankfully) and I think he probably suspects too, actually, what am I saying, he probably knows, he was the one who introduced us after all... I wander if he's disappointing too... Either way, _I_ wouldn't still be holding people to the things they did as students. Maybe he's forgotten. I kind of hope so.

From fourth year to the end really I was with a long term girlfriend. That kind of put a lid on all that self-discovery stuff. I had a girlfriend. My gay friends backed off, I wasn't going around kissing people and forgetting who exactly I was avoiding (though in fairness to myself I only slipped up and let that happen a few times...), and my straight friends had no reason to suspect anything. It was a pretty decent relationship, we had a nice time; it just didn't quite make it to the start of my basic training. I fell out with a lot of people over that -her being one, Harry another, and Mum too really. Dad not so much, he said he just wanted me to do what I wanted, but what he probably thought was that a bit of mud and shooting would stop me worrying about 'saving people' and telling him not to refer to my friends as 'queers'. I'm painting him as a dick now, he wasn't; he was a decent guy, just a product of the time and an alcoholic lesbian daughter. I think he just wanted to be able to relate to one of his kids. And have grandkids too. So that was my job.  
  
  
  
In people's heads the army is either the high point of all hyper masculine endeavours, or the gayest organisation on earth, after the Scouts. I really don't understand where anyone gets those ideas – it's just a group of people, mainly blokes obviously, and it's as varied as any group of people. Obviously there's a type, but everyone's still different, and to my knowledge there were no more or fewer gay people around than there are in a typical group of people. Having said that, I was kind of surprised how fast some people seemed to switch once we went away. The guys who really did like each other all paired up, with impressive effectiveness to be honest, they always seemed happy, and there were definitely some who I'd heard talking about girls at home who I had to awkwardly side step in the showers.

I avoided it all. Again. However much those in that sort of community seemed happy, it was so easy to get stuck with a label, and I knew anything I tried would end badly. The arrangements they all had seemed so simple – if I'd tried to get involved I probably just would have ruined it all with complications and switching sides. Best to let it alone. I was out there years and something only ever happened once. And it wasn't even a big something.

I was just hanging out with a friend one night. A straight friend. I think anyway - now there I go assuming. Thick walled tent in the middle east - hot and heavy - and one or two secret drinks we took from someone else's shelf of the fridge. We were quite good friends, so there wasn't a problem or any awkwardness sitting close and cross legged on one bunk, just talking, laughing. He'd been missing home, and the girl he wasn't sure would be waiting there. We got closer, he hung onto me. I was trying my best to be comforting, which I'm not very good at. Either way he appreciated it I'm guessing, because after wiping his eyes and taking another swig he said 'I like you. You remind me of her.' I frowned, bemused, was going to ask him how exactly, but I couldn't because he kissed me.

It was very different to anything that happened at uni, but obviously there was still a sense of Deja vu. I wasn't exactly to blame this time, I know that if I think about it rationally, he initiated, and it wasn’t even as if I thought of him like that, and we were close enough that nothing was truly wrecked, but it definitely wasn't good for our friendship and I was definitely the one who gave him a drink and shoulder to cry on. We drifted a bit. He obviously felt awful, and I'm still not sure if that's purely because he had a girlfriend or if sexuality was a factor too. Maybe he felt bad about getting me involved – I don’t think he knew.

There are times you look back on memories and just know they fucked you up. I wouldn't go that far here, but I know if I told Ella about this, or anyone else really, she'd instantly have it pegged as some sort of key moment in my 'trust issues and repression' that she was always so fond of.

After I got promoted we didn’t spend that much time together, and never alone. But then, after I got promoted, I didn't mind so much, because I made another friend. Then ruined that too.

  
  
I was attracted instantly, and really I should have known better than to let us get closer, but we just clicked, naturally. It started easily; he gave me the low down of the job, a tour of the officers only spaces, and a warm and enigmatic smile. After that we just tended to always end up in the same place at the same time. Sometimes I started to worry someone had found me out, and was engineering all this time together we seemed to have together. But no one ever second guessed us. We just became renowned as the closest friends at camp, which was as nice as it was painfully ironic. It did surprise people though, I think, him and me. He was a major after all, and tended to be elusive. A lot of people were scared of him. I got to call him James. He wasn't scary - just quiet. Alone he was possible the sweetest person I've ever met. He cared about justice, he liked animals, he told the funniest jokes.

I loved him, in the most pathetic way. But I wasn't prepared to risk anything. Our time together was the best part of any day - I couldn't lose it. I wasn't about to play double or quits with something, with someone, so important to me, especially with my history of being a bad luck charm with this sort of thing. I don't even know what I would have said. But I got close to breaking. I got dangerously close – and, stupidly, that just made me want it more.

Then that all ended. He led a group of new recruits off to change the world on a relatively gloomy Monday morning and didn't lead them back. I'd waved him off, thought, again, as always, about kissing him goodbye (and hadn't). I didn't see him again before I found out what happened, and after I did he, understandably, didn't want to talk. He flew home to face the inevitable outrage in his hyped-up-sense-of-morality way, and then to find somewhere safe and hidden, and I stayed out (well, no, not in that sense), miserable and miserable about the fact that he had made me miserable.

I got over it, over him, eventually. I had to push on, there was no point moping. It wasn't so difficult after I stopped reading the papers, stopped visiting the places we used to spend time, stopped hanging out with big groups of people that weren't the same without him. It was only a while anyway before I went back too. I got promoted again, which made it even easier to be even more ersatz in my socializing. Maybe that's a bit dramatic. I did have friends other than James, and they were great. But I just sort of had to put up a wall.

It didn't last that long anyway; I got shot, I went home too. I think he visited me in hospital, because someone brought me jam instead of flowers, and I can't think who else would, but I don't know for sure. I sort of ignored that though, at the time. I was over it, I was past it, I didn't need to think about it anymore. Or I shouldn’t have needed to.

 

I was home, or not in hospital anyway, alone again, and having a generally shit time of it when I met Sherlock Holmes, so really the only thing he could have done was make everything better. Which he did. And it was amazing. And, idiot that I am, as he constantly reminded me, I went and bloody loved him too.

Again, I never meant to, but, again, it was instantaneous. He's weird looking, but good weird, gorgeous weird, and who could resist that wink and promise of adventure? Damn right I liked him, ridiculous coat and insults included. When he said 'not my area' I could have cried, I could have leapt across the table.

I didn't, though, obviously.

I let it run its course as a friendship, because he was so different and special, because I was such a coward, but then I only ended up with such a unique and precious thing I didn't want to tip the balance. Stupid really, I'm old enough to realise by now that putting things off only makes it worse.

But in my defence this wasn't something I'd experienced before. I'd loved people before, loved a man not that long ago really, but I've never been so in synch with someone, so perfectly matched. He drove me insane, still does, really, but after two months I was ready to die as long as we could die together doing what we did best. One look, one nod, but I swear if I were any good at that kind of thing I could write bloody reams of sonnets about that one look. About all his looks. But I didn't. This was the most pathetic I've probably ever been, in all honesty, over everything, every other time, but I didn't feel low or vulnerable or any of that. He managed to make me feel better, stronger, safer, more important, all while I was pining away like it was an Olympic sport.

I know I come across cowardly, but this was undoubtedly the best relationship I've ever had with anyone - platonic or not. We had fun, we had a connection, we had restaurants where we could eat for free (not that it would ever have cost that much seeing as he never ordered, just picked at whatever I had). It had to be preserved.

I like to think I'm pretty good at hiding at this point, and I'd point to the fact that Sherlock never really figured out how much I cared about him as evidence, but somehow everyone else seemed to get that there was something going on. Whether that was my fault, or the fact that these were people who knew _him_ best I don't know. I think I probably had something to do with me, despite my best efforts. I said I was good at hiding, and I stick to it, but I'm not good at lying outright. I tend to lie by omission, or by clumsily changing the subject, or by throwing a joke in instead of an answer. Hence the 'I'm not gay' deflection I perfected at school made a resurgence. I think the only person who caught me out on that was The Woman. I should have seen that coming. I was hardly going to fool the lesbian dominatrix with that one, she'd probably heard it every other day, and used it only a little less than me. 'Look at us both' she'd said, and I was panicking all over again. (I'm still not sure if he heard that, or understood it, or what he thought…) Maybe it's something to do with the fact that she seemed to see how I felt about her being there when no one else did.

'Jealous?'

Alright, fine, yes. I'm a jealous person. Fine. Sue me. But I'd been there longer than her repressing every outrageous flirtatious move and feeling, and here she was, waltzing in from nowhere, throwing clichés and awful lines at a man I thought would never let her. And he looked at her like she was the most interesting thing in the world and I felt a whole lot smaller than 5'6". She had no tact, no class, no shame - yes, fine, I was probably just as jealous of that as I was the looks she managed to get out of him, the fact that she didn’t care - and she was going to end up hurting him. She had no idea the harm she could end up doing. She saw him as the world did, totally cold, when I knew there was a whole lot more there that she could potentially hit her spade on in all her digging. I had no clue about his history and I was trying pretty hard not to think about it, but that was the case where Mycroft decided to make my not thinking about it decidedly more difficult with his snarky 'how would you know'. And, I admit not purely for chivalrous reasons, I couldn’t stand the idea of this man, with so much more to give than just the brain he thought was everything, having something as important as that taken by this woman – who just thought of it all as a game.

The Woman was probably the high point of all of this. Most of the time I managed to keep it under wraps and underground. I loved him, yeah, more than anything, but it wasn't loud all the time. Once I accepted it as truth it just became a part of normal daily routine, and it sort of took a back seat in my head I suppose. Until that day, anyway.

 

I think it only really became clear as crystal what exactly I'd missed out on that day.

 

Then again, maybe I dodged a bullet. It was bad.

 

Having to watch my best friend and the person I loved getting dragged through the mud of the press to the point of near surrender, then disappear form my life. Again. But worse. Really really unspeakably bad, getting shot bad - I don't want to imagine how it would have been if we'd been...

 

Anyway.

 

I'm setting this down now because I'm moving on. And yes, they happen to be female, so this isn't really even relevant, but I'm getting tired of it now. Physically tiered of correcting people and telling truths that are half lies. Yes, Mary's great, and she's really helping, and one day, if it all works out, I'll probably love her too. But if I'm moving on then I'm moving on without any of this stupid baggage and withheld history. I'm beating about the bush here, and I just realised I've gone this whole thing without actually saying it. I'm bisexual. There, now you know. And I'm past the point of caring right now. I'm not going to discard half the people I've cared about anymore, pretend they don't exist or that they're someone else, to fit what some idiots think I should.

That ending was overly dramatic. Sherlock always said I was too dramatic on this. Well it's not like he's ever going to read it. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. You know sometimes he was so caught up in his belief he couldn't love anyone I think he forgot people could love him. Or he didn't care, or didn't know. I hope he did. But obviously I'll never know.

The police are still looking into it. I ring them quite a lot, probably too often in their minds. In mine it's not often enough. All I want is an apology really, which I know is stupid because he wouldn't have cared and it won't change anything.

 

 

I'm going out with Mary tonight actually – I think she thinks I'm depressed. Which is only half true. She really is good.

 

 

Maybe I shouldn't post this after all…

 

Fuck it.

 

If there's the slightest chance this could help someone else too then it's worth it, right?

 

Fuck it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> pls come and talk to me about bi john hcs on [tumblr](http://whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp.tumblr.com/)


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